Scientists on Thursday announced the discovery of a fossilized human jawbone in a collapsed cave in Israel that they said is between 177,000 and 194,000 years old.

If confirmed, the find may rewrite the early migration story of our species, pushing back by about 50,000 years the time that Homo sapiens first ventured out of Africa.

Previous discoveries in Israel had convinced some anthropologists that modern humans began leaving Africa between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago. But the recently dated jawbone is unraveling that narrative

Margaret Conkey, a UC Berkeley professor emerita of anthropology known for her pioneering exploration of feminist perspectives and gender issues in archaeology as well as new interpretations of European cave paintings from the Paleolithic era, is the Royal Anthropological Institute’s 2017 Thomas J. Huxley Memorial Medal recipient.

The highest award of the oldest anthropological organization in the world is bestowed in honor of Huxley, a British biologist, an early follower of Charles Darwin and a founder of the journal Nature who helped popularize Darwinism.